True to form, the Boyne Thunder Poker Run opened general registration yesterday morning. A few minutes later, it was booked solid. The Northern Michigan event, which will celebrate its 23rd birthday July 10-11, is that popular.
“And we wouldn’t have it any other way,” said Ingrid Day, Boyne Thunder’s events coordinator.
Of course, the Boyne Thunder Poker Run is a superb, charity-driven boating event in one of the world’s most beautiful natural environments. The hardware that consistently shows up from the likes of Apache, Cigarette, Mystic, MTI, Nor-Tech, Nor-Tech, Sunsation and more is as good as it gets. Boyne City is the most all-American of all-American towns.
Short version? For performance-boating fans, Boyne Thunder is hard to beat. So it sells out quickly. But another factor looms large.
Scarcity value. Every year, endless demand outstrips fixed supply. And change isn’t on the way.
The event has just 120 slots. Sponsors pay big dollars for the first 60 of them, which leaves just 60 places for general registration. Would-be participants outside the sponsor ranks know that getting in each year is—at best—a crapshoot. But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating, and understandably so.
Unless you happen to make it in. Then you get the full Boyne Thunder Poker Run experience. You may come up blank the following year. You may get lucky.
But once you’ve done it, chances are you won’t stop trying.